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July 15, 2011

ULM Spanish professor chosen as outstanding conference presenter

Dr. Charles Holloway, professor of Spanish at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, was chosen from among more than 40 presenters as the best of conference for his presentation entitled "What's Language Got to Do With It: Community Attitudes, Cultural Identity, and Language Loss Among the Isleños of Ascension Parish, Louisiana."

In March, the Louisiana Foreign Language Teachers Association held its 2011 conference in conjunction with the Southern Conference of Language Teachers.

As the winner of best presentation for LFLTA, Holloway has been invited to present at SCOLT in March 2012.

Holloway's paper introduced the Isleño population, whose ancestors came to Louisiana from the Canary Islands in the 18th century, and their unique variety of Louisiana Spanish which is now at the brink of linguistic extinction.

Holloway also examined the interconnected relationship of community attitudes, language contact, language attrition, and cultural identity within this vestigial language community.

Holloway first became involved with the study of the Isleños as part of his work on his dissertation at Louisiana State University, which was developed into a book entitled "Dialect Death: The Case of Brulé Spanish," published in 1997.

Since that time, Holloway has done significant research in the field of language death, contributing a number of articles to refereed journals and offering invited presentations at conferences throughout the country.

Two linguistics professors from the University of Texas at Austin recently contacted Holloway for more information regarding his research, which they intend to use in their courses.

Holloway has been a professor at ULM since 1989 and has been the recipient of numerous awards for his teaching, including the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese Professor of the Year Award in 2001, Mortar Board Outstanding Professor Award 2010, and ULM Outstanding Professor Liberal Arts in 1999, and Outstanding Teacher of Arts & Sciences in 2011.

Holloway also held the Dr. William Hammond Endowed Professorship in Liberal Arts (2001-2004).

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